The Socialist Francois Hollande is a very rich man. The newly elected president of France has three holiday homes on the Riviera, north of Cannes. Pretending to “dislike the rich,” the “gauche caviar” Hollande is very rich himself.
According to the London Evening Standard and the Official Journal, he has assets of one million British pounds. In addition, the “champagne Socialist” owns a “palatial villa in Mougins, the hilltop Cannes suburb where Pablo Picasso used to live” and two apartments close to the promenade in Cannes. The three villas in Cannes were valued at 800,000 Euros, 230,000 Euros, and 140,000 Euros. Hollande lives with his girlfriend in a well-appointed apartment in Paris.
Attacking the rich who “do not pay their fair share” is just a campaign ploy to pretend that a president cares for the poor. In reality, he is only interested in sharing other people’s money and wealth, not his own.
How do Socialists/Marxists acquire wealth? I am not sure how Mr. Hollande acquired his fortune, perhaps he took entrepreneurial advantage of the very capitalist system he abhors and maligns.
Politicians often enter service quite poor and exit the system fabulously wealthy. Perhaps they use insider trading information to invest money “wisely.” Ordinary citizens would go to jail if caught investing in such a manner. Laws and jail are only for ordinary citizens, politicians are immune to the law.
I do know how many communist elites and their loyal lackeys became millionaires and billionaires in Romania. During the terror reign of Nicolae Ceausescu, they pillaged and confiscated private property from all citizens but particularly the wealth of those who owned multiple homes, land, paintings, gold coins, cars, and jewelry.
Many communists had huge bank accounts in Switzerland and lived like kings while the population starved, fearing for their lives daily, and lucky to be alive. Shortly after Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed on Christmas 1989, several billion dollars worth of financial aid earmarked for economic development in Romania, disappeared without a trace. To this day, it has not been found, and nobody was held accountable for its disappearance.
Before Romania became part of the European Union in January 2007, the IMF offered loans to individual entrepreneurs to start businesses. The terms were quite lax and no collateral was required. Honest citizens, who had no idea how they would repay millions of Euros, avoided such loans. Dishonest citizens bee-lined to get loans. Businesses went bust and did not have to repay a dime of the squandered capital. Some entrepreneurs were successful but with a lot of corruption and graft.
After 1989, politicians, their families, and former communist party apparatchiks started selling the property of the state to the highest foreign bidders without any input or accountability, and pocketed the money. Regulatory institutions and judges were bribed and nobody went to jail.
All the means of production, previously controlled by the state, were broken up bit by bit, sold, and privatized while the “proletariat” watched in dismay. The working class was supposed to own everything collectively but nobody dared to claim a piece for himself/herself. Nobody could touch the wealth; it was not really theirs to be had. Only the communist elites could enrich themselves at the trough of the communist utopia. The proletariat just got the crumbs if they behaved according to the Communist Party Five Year Plans.
The Economic Police made sure that nobody got ahead of anybody else. Agents, aided by paid informants, made frequent raids in people’s homes to inquire where they got better food, better clothes, or better furniture than anybody else had.
The lifestyles of the rich and famous were a good description of how the dictator, his family, his lackeys, and the Communist Party members lived while the masses seethed in despair. Rebellion was out of the question, guns were confiscated early, and suppression would have been swift and brutal.
Hollande promises to spend lavishly on social programs and new government jobs, more than the 28 percent of GDP that France currently spends on welfare. His subjects will be well fed, expected to deliver a minimum of effort, and a lousy work ethic. After all, in the socialist mind, everything is a right and must be provided by the state free. It is a form of slavery to the government, like a well-behaved and devoted dog who expects nothing else but his daily rations of food and shelter.
Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, Ileana Writes is a freelance writer, author, radio commentator, and speaker. Her books, “Echoes of Communism”, “Liberty on Life Support” and “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” “Communism 2.0: 25 Years Later” are available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
